


Dog of the military

by Mymlen



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Ishbalan | Ishvalan Alphonse Elric, Ishbalan | Ishvalan Edward Elric, Ishbalan | Ishvalan Trisha Elric, Ishvalan Elric-brothers AU, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-12-07 13:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20976935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mymlen/pseuds/Mymlen
Summary: Trisha Elric was Ishvalan; her sons are born with red eyes and brown skin. This does not make their lives as State Alchemists any easier. An Ishvalan in the military is a walking paradox - tragic or traitorous, depending on your point of view. Edward avoids the uniform as much as possible for that exact reason, but it doesn't make much of a difference. He has gotten used to the way people stare in the same way he is used to his automail: it's there and there's nothing he can do about it, and because the discomfort is constant he can sometimes forget about it. That doesn’t mean he isn’t bothered.





	1. Prologue

In 1910 Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Hawkeye went to a small village in south east Amestris. It was supposed to be an easy job. Another soldier had passed through the area and heard rumors that there were practicing alchemists there, a pair of brothers supposedly quite talented. They had been sent to see if it was true and, if it was, to recruit them for the army. It was supposed to be a simple job. He remembered the train ride there, how peaceful he had felt watching the green fields of the eastern countryside glide past.

He remembered waving insects away from his sweaty face, remembered the way his too-hot uniform chafed as he walked with Hawkeye from the station to the house on the hill that had been pointed out to them when they asked about the brothers Elric. He remembered laughing as they walked, but he couldn’t recall anymore what they had been talking about. The front door of the house had been open. No one answered when they knocked.

He remembered, more than anything, putting his hand against the door and hearing the buzzing of flies on the other side. The harsh scent of chemicals and blood that washed over him, the way he knew that something was horribly wrong, long before his eyes adjusted to the dimness inside and he saw the transmutation circle on the floor.

He remembered how long it took to get directions to the Rockbell house. He remembered pushing the tiny old lady aside, striding into the workshop to find the brothers. He had come to recruit talented amateur alchemists, but right then he had been burning with fury and the desire to drag criminals before a court. And then he stepped into the kitchen and saw the tiny kid in the wheelchair. He saw the dark brown skin, the empty, hopeless but most of all red eyes. The hair was more gold than white, but there was no doubt that the child was Ishvalan, and for a second his thoughts had jammed up, even the rage that had been climbing up his throat curled back and choked him, because all he could see was a _dismembered, Ishvalan child_, and all he could think was _oh God, not again._

Then the tiny, old lady had spoken behind him.

“Please, sir. They’re children. They didn’t know what they were doing.”

Which was when he put two and two together.

He had been so thrown off by the kid, he hadn’t even noticed the incongruous suit of armor seated at the table next to him until it lifted its head and said, in a child’s voice:

“Are you here to arrest us?”

The train ride back to the Eastern Headquarters had been a quiet one. It was evening when they left Resembool. The sun had set over the fields before either of them spoke.

“What did you say to them?” Hawkeye asked softly.

“I encouraged them to join the military.”

Hawkeye’s face remained impassive.

“I see,” she said.

The silence stretched between them. He could still smell the acrid scent of the room. He knew the smell of blood too well, knew the way it mixed with the crisp texture alchemy left in the air, but he hadn’t known it like that, the way it soured when it was left to fester in a closed room on a hot summer day.

“They are very young,” said Hawkeye.

He swallowed.

“They’re more than qualified. Performing… performing human transmutation at that age, even if it was unsuccessful... They are more than qualified to be State Alchemists.”

“Did they really do it?”

“Yes. There was a body. The old lady buried it, apparently.”

“But still, for them to join the military…”

“They would gain privileges. Access to research."

He felt the bile rising in his throat again. He was looking past her as he spoke. He kept his face neutral. She could probably read his every thought on his face anyway. She seemed to always know what he was thinking.

“They might even be able to find a way to get their bodies back,” he said.

It felt like a lie. It had felt like a lie when he said it to the kid too, but he had wanted to… he wasn’t good at consoling people. He wasn’t sentimental. But he had wanted to offer them something, some kind of hope, some kind of way to move forward. He had spoken confidently, but in his chest, he had felt the serrated edge of doubt, because really, why was he trying to persuade them? Wasn’t he just following his orders, once again doing as he had been told – after all, the rumors were true, the alchemists he had found were younger than expected, but they were certainly talented enough, capable enough for military duty and so his orders, as they were, were to recruit them.

“That child was Ishvalan, wasn’t he?” said Hawkeye quietly.

It wasn’t really a question. She had seen him, just as he had.

“They weren’t in Ishval. They’ve been living in Resembool their whole lives.”

“Still-“

“They would earn money. They pay State Alchemists well. Apparently, the father isn’t around. And their mother passed away. She was the reason they...” he trailed off.

“They were trying to bring her back?”

“Yes.”

The train rattled on. It was too dark to see out the windows anymore, the glass had become black mirrors, reflecting the inside of the carriage.

“Are we going to report it to the higher ups, sir?”

He almost laughed at that, her referring to him so formally. It was only a pretense by now, he was no more her superior than she was his. But she meant it as a reminder that she would let him make the call on this. That she wouldn’t argue with his decision.

“No,” he said. “No, we’re not going to tell anyone.”

For months after his visit to Resembool, Mustang had been tense and short tempered. He expected every day to be the day someone would report to him that an invalid, Ishvalan child had come to enlist. But the day didn’t come. No child showed up, and part of him was relieved.


	2. Chapter 1

In 1917 Edward and Alphonse Elric returned to Central after long trip to a small town on the border between Amestris and Creta that had seemed promising for a while and in the end turned out utterly pointless. It wasn’t the first time they had gone on a pointless trip, but usually they didn’t waste months learning absolutely nothing. It was not going to be fun explaining to Colonel Jamison why they had been gone for a month longer than they had said they would and still came back empty handed. On the other hand, the old fart was lazy as hell and his paperwork was a mess, so if they played it cool it was possible he hadn’t even noticed.

The train ride back had felt endless. Ed stretched his arms over his head and rolled his shoulders as they climbed the steps of Central Headquarters.

“I hate sleeping on trains,” he groaned. “My automail is killing me.”

“You should get Winry to look at it,” Alphonse said.

Ed rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, if she decides to come to Central. I’m not putting my ass on another train for at least a month now that we’re finally back.”

It was early morning, and even though military people were usually eerily early to rise, the Headquarters were still slow and quiet, the hallways not yet crowded with busy personnel. Ed could almost appreciate being back in the familiar grandness of it all, though he hated how loud Al was in here. He knew Al did too, the way every step he took was a sharp clang against the stone floor, the creak of his armor echoing off the walls. Sure, people stared at them out in the provinces too, but those were different stares. Curious rather than ashamed. He definitely preferred that to the way people studiously _didn’t_ look at them when they were around the military.

“Fullmetal!” called someone and Ed turned around.

Lieutenant Kiehl was leaning out of a doorway. Kiehl was too happy listening to his own voice to be ashamed about anything, which Ed could appreciate even if the guy was a total idiot.

“I thought it was you,” Kiehl said with a grin. “Hard to mistake the racket you two make. Weren’t you supposed to be back a month ago?”

Ed shrugged.

“We got delayed.”

“Well, it’s good to have you back in one piece – or, well, in the same pieces that left, at least.”

“Haha. Never heard that one before.”

“Never stops being funny.”

“Yeah – you know, we should probably be on our way, I need to report back to the old man. No need to be more late than we already are.”

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Kiehl said, his face falling into the mock concern of a seasoned of gossip-peddler about to break bad news to some poor, ignoran bastard not yet in the loop. Ed had a sinking feeling in his gut. “Jamison finally retired. You’ve got a new boss.”

Great. They were going to make a stellar first impression.

“Who is it?”

He almost didn’t care. No matter who the new guy was, there was little chance that some recently promoted shmuck would show the same kind of leniency that Jamison had.

“A guy from East Heaquarters,” said Kiehl with a shrug. “Some war hero, apparently. I haven’t had the chance to meet him yet, but he’s supposed to be a real asshole.”

Ed winced.

“Great,” he muttered.

A war hero. Any chance that meeting his new superior could be any kind of painless was gone, then. This was going to be supremely awkward.

“Come on, Al,” he said. He nodded back at Kiehl. “See you around.”

Kiehl grinned after them.

“Good luck!”

Ed had been a state alchemist for a while now. It had been longer than that since he learned about what really happened in Ishval. He knew why people looked at him the way they did. An Ishvalan in a state alchemist’s uniform – he was a walking paradox. Tragic or traitorous, depending on your point of view. He avoided the uniform as much as possible for that exact reason, but it didn’t make much of a difference. He had acquired a reputation even before he started trying to build one, and he had gotten used to the way people stared, but it was in the same way that he was used to his automail: it was part of him and there was nothing he could do about it, and because the discomfort was constant he could sometimes forget it was even there. That didn’t mean he wasn’t bothered. And sometimes, it was more bothersome than others. He stopped outside the doors to the colonel’s office and looked up at Al.

“You ready?” he asked.

Al shrugged, the movement accompanied by a complicated clank and screech of metal.

“Are you?” he said.

Ed grimaced. There had been quite a lot of hate for Ishvalans in the military, otherwise they never could have pulled off the extermination. And even though the official story was now that the whole thing had been a terrible mistake, it was still the mistake of engaging in civil war, not genocide, and there was still enough bigotry to go around. The ones who had given the orders for the extermination were still in charge. People like their new colonel were still “war heroes”. Ed wasn’t even sure what he dreaded the most from their new superior –his prejudice or his bad conscience.

“Suppose it doesn’t matter,” he said. “We just have to get it over with.”

He took a deep breath and kicked the doors open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU, so I'm fucking around a bit with the canon continuity, including some things that are not a direct consequence of Ed and Al being Ishvalan. This is mostly going to be things like time and place (like in this chapter - the time that Ed enlists versus when he meets Mustang and where Mustang is stationed). This is also probably going to affect when/if the homunculi show up in this fic. I'm just mentioning it here in case there was any confusion.


	3. Chapter 2

Roy was not happy about his promotion. He didn’t even know why he had gotten it. He had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with his plans, that perhaps the higher ups were on to him and wanted him close, where he was easier to keep an eye on. Though he kind of hoped he was just being paranoid about that. Hawkeye kept telling him he was too anxious.

That was another thing, though – it had been an awful hassle to get them to let him bring her, big enough that he hadn’t dared ask for anyone else, which meant the rest of his team were still stuck back in the East. He felt tied on hands and feet in this new city where he had no idea who he could trust, where people hadn’t yet learned to respect him, where they noted his youth and nothing else and assumed he didn’t know what he was doing.

That, and he was absolutely swamped with paperwork. So, all in all, he did not have the time or the energy or the patience for whoever this young state alchemist was who had been away for nearly a month and a half on what was supposed to be a two-week research trip, the purpose of which was ridiculously vague, and who hadn’t bothered to check in even once about the reasons for his delay.

He glanced at the paper someone had left on his desk. Elric. The name sounded vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it. The notice said his train had come in an hour ago, so he ought to show up for a report any second.

The office doors were kicked in.

Roy didn’t even start – he was a professional after all – only looked up calmly, an eyebrow raised in cold annoyance. And then his stomach dropped.

The kid was older now, though still far, far too young – 17 at most, and even then, he was small for his age, skinny and quite short. As if to compensate for his unimpressive stature, he was wearing a flashy red coat instead of a military uniform. His golden hair had grown long and was pulled back in a braid. More importantly, he appeared to have regained his lost limbs. He was still instantly recognizable. And even if there had been any doubt in the colonel’s mind, it was eviscerated by the hulking suit of armor that followed the kid inside and somehow managed to convey embarrassment without the advantage of a face.

“Yo!” the kid said, striding across the office as if he owned it and dropping down on the chair in front of Roy’s desk, slouching into a boneless sprawl. “Edward Elric, state alchemist, reporting back from a research mission in the East.”

“I thought we were trying to make a good impression,” the suit of armor muttered in a young, nervous voice that sent a cold shiver down Roy’s spine.

“I…” Roy began, but couldn’t think of anywhere to go from there.

He had planned to be quick, strict, efficient. Establish that he wasn’t someone to cut corners with, then get on with more important things. All strict, efficient words eluded him. He just stared at the child in front of him, who seemed both completely unchanged and utterly transformed. The face was the same. His eyes were the bright Ishvalan-red that Roy remembered, but last he had seen them, they had been dead, empty and unfocused. Now they were sparkling with deadly clarity and an arrogance to match the boy’s easy smile.

And then those red eyes narrowed.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

Roy nodded.

“I see you’ve got your limbs back,” he said calmly. You would have to know him very well to be able to hear that he was rattled.

The boy – Edward Elric – looked confused for a second, but then understanding dawned on him.

“It’s you!” he said, straightening up and staring wide eyed at Roy. “Holy shit. I thought you’d be older by now.”

“And I thought I would have heard about it if you did decide to join the military. I expected you to show up at the Eastern Headquarters.”

Elric shrugged.

“I only joined up a year ago. Had some things I needed to take care of first,” he said. “Needed to get used to these, for one thing.”

He pulled off his glove and wiggled his mechanical fingers. Roy glanced once more at the paper on his desk.

“Fullmetal,” he read. He had wondered about that title.

“Yup. Rockbell Automail, custom made top quality prosthetics.”

“I see. I thought perhaps the title had something to do with…” he nodded towards the suit of armor.

“Alphonse isn’t a state alchemist. He doesn’t have a title.”

“I see. And Alphonse, you were with your brother on this research mission?”

The suit of armor nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

Roy grabbed a piece of paper and started doodling randomly, pretending to take notes.

“Which you should have been back from four weeks ago?” he continued, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease a bit.

This was fine. This was better. He was back on track. This was what he needed to do – give them a talking to, ask them about the mission and their delay, not the myriad of other questions building up in the back of his mind, the things he hadn’t realized he’d been wondering about ever since he left that empty-eyed child behind in Resembool.

“We got delayed,” said the young man in front of him.

“We tried to get back sooner,” his brother added.

“I gathered as much. The mission statement was ridiculously vague, though,” he said, shuffling through the files on his desk to find the right folder. “What exactly was it you were researching?”

“The philosopher’s stone.”

Roy stopped midway through a stack of paper. He looked up at the kid, expecting to see a shit-eating grin on his face and was instead met with a stone-cold glare. A challenge. A question. Roy put the papers back down. He could ask him about why, but that would be stupid. It was obvious why. He could ask if the military knew, but he already knew they didn’t. He could tell him the philosopher’s stone wasn’t real, that it was a myth, that there was no point in searching for it, that it was a waste of military funding and Elric’s time. But he remembered standing in a small country house kitchen long ago, giving an empty speech about hope and purpose to a child who would drown, who would die, if he did not find something to hold on to.

“You don’t need to include that in your report,” he said.

Elric nodded.

“Thank you.”

“You’re dismissed, Fullmetal.”


	4. Chapter 3

The new colonel was an asshole, Kiehl had been right about that. He was an asshole and he wanted everyone to know it. He was young for someone that high up the food chain, and he had to be able to play the game of politics to have ended up there, but he was not making friends with the brass at Central. Edward could respect that, in theory. He just had a hard time respecting it in practice, because the colonel was also absolutely insufferable to work under.

Ed only had a vague memory of the officers who had come to recruit him and Al all those years ago. He remembered somber, blurry-faced figures in blue uniforms. He remembered a stern, far-away voice telling him he had to keep going as if it actually believed he could. He had a hard time making that memory match the self-important, obnoxious, nosy arsehole who was now his superior officer. He didn’t _like_ Mustang, and he didn’t bother hiding it either. The feeling was obviously mutual. He had only told him about the philosopher’s stone because… well, he wasn’t quite sure why. The colonel and lieutenant Hawkeye were the only ones in the military who knew the truth about how he and Al lost their bodies, and that was important. When Mustang arrived at Central, he had already kept their secret for years. That was the kind of thing that demanded honesty, and Edward had given him as much in letting him know about their search for the philosopher’s stone. But he still didn’t know what reasons the colonel had for keeping their secret, and as long as he didn’t know that, he didn’t trust him. He didn’t suspect the colonel to turn on them or anything, to suddenly start blackmailing them or change his mind and turn them in – he might be a politician, but he didn’t seem like the backstabbing type. But Ed and Al had only made it this far by being careful with their trust, and it was not a policy Ed had any interest in breaking. They kept their cards close, granting their respect and trust only where it had been earned, and that was how they survived.

The problem was that the more he worked with Mustang, the more he started to suspect that the colonel’s reasons were simply that he was _a good man_. Which was an awful thing to realize, because it meant that Ed would probably end up liking him. He already liked Hawkeye. He liked how there were some people in the Military who were Mustang’s people before they were the Führer’s, and he liked that those people clearly hadn’t been picked just for their rank or their status or their talent (though there was plenty of all three among them), but for some other, unknown quality that Ed couldn’t quite put his finger on, couldn’t name or pin down, only recognize, because it was the same thing he looked for in other people.

And it was precisely that growing, grudging respect that made it so unbearable when Mustang slipped and Edward got to look beneath his obnoxious façade. Because what he saw there wasn’t respect, it was shame.

He could deal with Mustang treating him like a kid.

He could deal with Mustang ignoring his rank and treating him like a lowly recruit.

He could not deal with the way Mustang flinched when he looked at him. It wasn’t much, not anywhere near the reaction he got from other officers, but he didn’t _care_ about those officers. It took punching a hole in a wall because Mustang hadn’t been able to look him in the eye before he could admit to himself that he did care about Mustang. He cared quite a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that it's totally a mess with the chapter titles when the first chapter is a prologue but the rest don't have titles apart from their number (this whole "chapter 4: chapter 3"-business) - if anyone knows of a more elegant solution to this, please let me know!


End file.
